Having first arrived in 1922, Jazz in the USSR was an independently developing phenomenon. Soviet musicians had limited opportunities to meet with American contemporaries, and most of their learning came from records.Despite being criticised by such greats as Maxim Gorky and periods of official repression, jazz survived. In the post Stalin era Soviet audiences got more exposure to jazz music. By the 1970’s, when Soviet musicians were travelling to the west, they were astonishing their new audiences with their technical abilities.

Vagif* Mustafazadeh(Вагиф Мустафа-Заде 1940-1979) was born in 1940 in Baku, capital of what was then Azerbaijan SSR. His early musical interests were jazz (heard via BBC broadcasts) and Meykhana rhythmic poetry. He had started to play piano at the age of 3 and received a formal musical education. Jazz remained his main passion, however. Dissatisfied with improvisational jazz, he began to fuse jazz with Mugam, a traditional Azeri music.He won awards at various All-Soviet Union Jazz Festivals (Tallinn-66, Caz-69, Donetsk -77.Tbilisi-78). In 1978 at Monaco he won the first prize at the 8th International Competition of Jazz Composers for his composition Waiting for Aziza.

Mustafazade died of a heart-attack shortly after a concert in Tashkent. He was 39. Following his death he was made an Honoured Artist of Azerbaijan SSR.